Why Is There A David Weigel? Part IX

David Weigel, "Newt Gingrich Loves America and Leads With His Chin". March 10

OKAY, so, evidently the whole Librul Media/Fairness for "Conservative" Viewpoints routine of the last forty years comes down to the requirement, not that the mass market media treat the Right with fairness, respect, or equality, but slack and slack-jawed credulity:

Count me among the very, very few people -- like, the we-can-fit-in-the-same-Volvo number of people -- who doesn't find this Newt Gingrich answer to David Brody totally risible.

Surely you exaggerate, Mr. Weigel. I mean, I think even the smallest Volvo seats four.

To understand this, you need to understand Kenyan anti-colonial thinking what John Dickerson pointed out on Monday. Gingrich is embracing his biggest problem with both hands. He said this in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network; he knew both his immediate audience and his potential audience. (David Brody and the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson, because they don't actually try to nail their subjects, always get the most/damaging revealing quotes from 2012ers.)

Rrrrright. First, love the Kenyan anti-colonial thinking gag, as though that reduces the Republicans' massive crackpot problem to a cocktail-party bon mot. It's a great technique, all right; look how it eliminated all the evidence of racism racists in the party. Now, then: the gentlemen of The Christian Broadcasting Network and The National Review refrain from asking tough questions during their hagiographies because that gets their subjects to reveal really telling details? As when Newt Gingrich explains serial adultery and terminal spouse abuse by blaming it on his work load. Or when Mitch Daniels, who polls just slightly higher than Louis Farrakhan with Republican religious voters, says he'll deemphasize the culture war if he's elected President, right up to the time when he has to name an Attorney General. Where would our current national debate be without these remarkable revelations? For one thing, our pundits would have to waste time reading more than headlines at Politico.

But he's not credible-sounding when he gets all gooey about religion.

Jesus, that's like saying, "You know, the AMC Pacer is not a really attractive car viewed from the front." It's a helluva lot quicker to just name the times when Newt is "credible-sounding". Though it may take you like forever to find one.

So he talked about his divorces (blandly, without the ugly details) in the context that ambitious Christians can understand. He used to prioritize his work over his relationship with family and God, and now he doesn't.*

[Footnote in original] See, in what used to pass for common sense, that was called "avoiding the question", not "unintentionally revealing yourself". I'm not sure how anyone other than a Republican shill can see it otherwise, and I'm not sure how they can claim to do so without trying to cut their throats while shaving tomorrow morning.

I guess you could argue that the "Newt Sez He Cheated Because He Loves America" soundbite will haunt him anyway

Yeah, I guess you could. Seems so unfair, though.

but really, has coverage of Gingrich up to this point come with the assumption that he can actually be elected president?

So let the shit fly, Newt! Someone's bound to mistake it for bouquets.

* I'm not saying this was pure brilliance!

You're a hard-nosed realist, then?

At least part of Gingrich's problem right now is that he's spent the last decade on the softball circuit at Fox News, and he and other potential 2012ers who've been catering to conservative media are struggling a bit as they realize that Media Matters can hear that stuff, too.

For mother-fucking cryin' out loud, the Right's been talking to itself, and only itself, for the past forty years at least. I don't recall Newt Gingrich speaking to me, or answering tough questions posed by The Left, or actually doing much besides talking to himself, before or since FOX News. There was that Contract With America deal, but I think if you're attuned to more than your own opinion you don't offer up contracts with 80% of the items dead on arrival. There was his leadership in the Jim Wright thing, followed by the equally surprising Newt Gingrich Did The Exact Same Thing But Refused To Resign thing, which didn't seem to acknowledge my viewpoint either time. There was the Bring Back Federal Orphanages plan; I don't recall that getting a lot of bipartisan support. There was the fact that he could be considered a "Futurist" in Republican circles because he knew what a laptop was. I suppose that at some point in my advancing years I may fall off a ladder, hit my head, and turn to him to learn what would have happened if that collection of deported criminals and microcephalics he calls his Heritage actually won the Civil War, but for now "more slavery" is sufficient for my purposes.


And there's his twenty-year silence on the yawning discrepancy between Republican "Christian" "Morality" and the fact that his own personal behavior could make a tom cat blanch. And now he breaks it, just as his wholly fucking delusional Presidential Campaign Contribution Drive gets underway, by serving a big steaming pile of shits n' grits to an easily satisfied audience. Be honest now, Mr. Weigel. Did you ever imagine a Volvo could be so roomy?